Go ahead and write the bare infinitive “read”, then. It’s an odd convention indeed that in English we often cite verbs with the “to” hanging off superfluously (and, of course, one which holds only partially; one doesn’t flip to the ‘T’ section of the dictionary to look up all verbs).
I would doubt you have ever seen “read” used as an adjective (the closest thing would be the phrase “well-read”). In a sentence like “‘Michigan’ is read the same as ‘intelligent’”, “read” is no adjective; just a verb (specifically, a past participle). It’s the same as “I’ve been read my rights” or “He has read many books”.
Replace “adjective” throughout with “past participle”, and this would be correct. There’s no adjective anywhere in “That is read as…”.
I should note that participles (past and present) can “function as” adjectives (or something close to them) in some ways (thus, they can modify nouns in phrases like “the read book”, “the eaten pies”, “the crying baby”, “the juggling clown”), and depending on your perspective, there may or may not be a distinction or gradient between these and “true”/“truer” adjectives. So perhaps it isn’t quite fair to say you’ve never seen “read” as an adjective.
However, what’s pretty much certain is that phrases like “That is read as…” use the past participle “read” as a straight-up verb (just as do phrases like “I’ve read…”).
I can’t believe there’s any debate about this at all (bless the SDMB; you’d even find dissent for statements as obvious as “the sky is often blue” or “bears shit on the Pope”).
I don’t think there is any serious debate going on. Everyone seems to have pretty much agreed that this usage is generally imperative. At most, Balthisar has noted his own preferences, and I’ve noted how I used to (mis-)interpret it, but no one has contested the assertion that it is actually imperative.
Doesn’t this convention come from voice broadcasting (radio and possibly military communication?) - as a way of applying edits without retyping a whole script? - i.e. “for X, read: Y”.
Since that’s an instruction (you should read: Y), then it’s ‘reed’.
For the record, I’ve not taken a position; just explaining why I’ve always thought of it the way I’ve thought of it.
I’ve not run across this construct in Spanish! What would they do, if there’s an equivilent, used form? “Es de Michigan (leido: intelligente),” or “Es de Michigan (leer/lea/lee: intelligente!)”?
Thanks. Definition 13, I suppose. But I particularly wanted a discussion of the use which wasn’t as a sentence, but rather as the usual terse parenthetical “(read: [whatever])”. Did you find any discussion of that?
